


Skymenders

by zylaa



Category: Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Dragons, Fantasy, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, Magic School, More tags to be added as I write this thing, Multi, Soul Bond
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-05
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-07-07 04:29:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15900909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zylaa/pseuds/zylaa
Summary: In a land still recovering from a devastating plague, the dragon academy still recruits teenagers to soul-bond with dragons, as it has for hundreds of years. But on top of magic classes, raising baby dragons, and learning to live with each other, a handful of students discovers that the plague isn't so easily left in the past.





	1. Jayk, 1

Jayk’s oldest sister, the only one who cared enough to remember such things, brought em halfway down the mountain to town for the dragonways test.

Every summer, two representatives of the Highfall Academy circled the whole kingdom, stopping at every town worthy of inclusion on the king’s maps. For as long as Jayk could remember—for much longer than eir 13 years—the representatives had been the same neman and xoman, and they had never been off by even a single day, even at the height of the plague.

Jayk’s sister had packed bread and apples for breakfast. The two had gotten up early for the long cart ride from their own village to town—so early it was better described as “late”-so for once, Jayk had the juiciest apple, and a hunk of bread that was more fluff than crust. Jayk was the youngest of nine. Ey’d been born under the sign of the shepherd, like all eiman, which seemed like a cruel joke of the Ones Among the Stars against a child with eight siblings plus parents telling them what to do. Eir siblings called Jayk “runt kid” and bleated at em. Jayk was always trying to shove eir way through the herd of siblings for a scrap of space, or food, or trinkets and toys.

But here, here at last, was something that could be all Jayk’s own. Jayk had tried not to hope for it, because hoping for something of your own was the first step on the arduous climb towards inevitable disappointment. But star-blessed above, did ey want it.

Even though they reached the town at dawn, the roads were already packed. They left the cart with a cousin in town they trusted. On foot, Jayk trailed behind eir sister as she pushed through the crowd, broad arms and sturdy shoulders of the blacksmithing trade giving her a distinct advantage.

The town sloped. Buildings of gray stone and dark wood clung to the curves and rocks of the mountain, some more successfully than others. Many of the listing buildings were empty, as they had been since the plague. Some had collapsed, and hungry vines and brambles took them over. But someone in town was keeping watch; every empty building had a clean-swept, knee-high stone arch of the reaper out front, complete with a rough-hewn stone slab for memorials and offerings. When Jayk was a child, every reaper’s table was hidden by the townspeople’s remembrances of the dead, their pleas for mercy. Now, most had only a dish of dried shaleberries. But none sat hungry.

At the lowest end of town, buildings abruptly stopped. Here, soil gave way to stone, an outcropping as long as the town, bare except for a couple of felled pines at the edges that stretched from the town to the edge of the rock. The lichen and moss on the slab bore the scratches of hundreds of clawed feet. This was where dragons landed.

 

The neman and xoman, Masters Karnon and Elondrem, flew in on the back of a Laganrian Glider, a green and brown, smooth-scaled dragon whose wings were each as long as Jayk’s house. The glider was the neman’s soul-bond; the xoman had a Mahogany Strangler, a serpentine dragon with vivid blue eyes that twined around xir limbs or waist and settled there like one of the more ridiculous fashions Jayk saw in old woodcuts.

Jayk had been dreaming of dragons for years, and as always, at the sight of one, ey imagined emself with it. _I could fly anywhere I wanted with the glider._ Ey knew they were remapping the old trade roads, flying to the edge of the known world and back. _The strangler…_ ey hesitated. Ey didn’t have many uses for suffocating people. Its uncanny gaze could keep em from being roughhoused too much?

_I’d probably get a sheep-dragon,_ Jayk thought, with something of a mental shake. _A little fuzzy thing that said “baa” and hid from everyone._

The neman and xoman’s hair had been white for longer than anyone in town could remember, but though their faces and hands were lined, they walked with the energy of people in their prime. The xoman retrieved an ornately carved box from the bags strapped to the glider’s back. The large dragon folded its wings with care and settled to the ground as the two humans approached the waiting crowd.

Jayk’s sister had pulled em in front of her, and now ey had an unobstructed view of the proceedings—em and all the other 13-year-olds in the area. A few dozen, many whom Jayk had known since they were children, though ey wasn’t close with them. Jayk’s parents had sent em to the local schoolhouse, sporadically like most people did, and there were always market days, star days, and fair days.

The neman, Master Karnon, beamed at them all with the face of a lifetime spent soothing worried youngsters. “Welcome!” ne proclaimed, as if the townspeople had all come to nem and not the other way around. “Thank you for being here. I don’t have to tell you all how important a day this is.” Ne would, of course, tell them, but ne always kept it brief. Jayk was more focused on the wooden chest.

Someone in town had brought a sturdy table to the edge of the square. The xoman set the wooden chest on the ground, opened it, and out of layers of fur padding, unwrapped an iron-wrought stand and a perfect crystal sphere. The sphere glowed like it held sizzling embers in the bottom, and occasionally, sparks rose within the cloudy black crystal.

If you had a dragon soul-match, when you touched the crystal, vivid yellow flames would engulf the ball. But Jayk had never seen a chosen child flinch. If ey flinched, would ey be disqualified? Or did dragons know, somehow, that you were a flinching sort of person, and thus not worthy of a dragon, not even a little fuzzy sheeplike one?

The xoman, Master Elondrem, swept xir eyes over the crowd as xir partner spoke, weighing the children on whatever mental scales the dragon-bonded used. Xir dragon did the same. Behind them, the glider settled down and closed its eyes for a nap.

“Form a line, now,” the xoman said as Master Karnon stopped talking. Xe pointed to the side the box, and there was an instant scramble. Even Jayk launched emself from eir sister, though with the rush of people and Master Elondrem’s watchful gaze ahead, ey slowed after half a dozen steps, accepting a place towards the back of the line.

One by one, the children approached the crystal. Master Elondrem asked their name, sign, and age with crisp efficiency, loud enough for the gathered crowd to hear, though many children whispered or mumbled answers. Master Karnon worked nir way down the line. Jayk drummed eir fingers against eir leg as children at the front of the line began the tests. They’d rest their hands on the ball, wait, and nothing would happen. Some years nobody would be chosen. This could be one of those years.

“Nervous?” Master Karnon said. Jayk hadn’t paid attention to the master, so focused ey was on the failures ahead and the ever-shrinking line. Jayk could only bob eir head. Master Karnon smiled. “Don’t be. It’ll all be over in an instant.”

_That’s what I’m afraid of,_ Jayk thought. _A few more minutes, and it’s over._

Three people ahead. Two people ahead. One person ahead. And then there was nobody between em and the crystal, just a few feet of rock and the unflagging Master Elondrem asking, “Name?”

“Jayk, child of Noris and Farok.” Eir voice was a distant squeak.

“Star-sign?”

“Shepherd.”

Master Elondren waved Jayk forward. Ey took a deep breath, took a step, and flung both eir hands out onto the crystal.

One heartbeat. Two heartbeats. The crystal was cool, smoother than a river stone. And on the third heartbeat, warmth bloomed under Jayk’s hands, and the crystal burst into dazzling flame. Jayk stared as it lapped around eir hands, comforting as sunlight after a storm, as a hug, as a blanket by a winter fire.

_I did it._ Eir face broke into a grin, and ey looked up at Master Elondren, who smiled for the first time since landing.

“Wonderful, just wonderful news!” Master Karnon said, coming up behind Jayk. Ne stretched out nir hands, and Jayk reached out to clasp them instinctively, removing eir hands from the crystal. The warmth stayed, even as the flames died. Master Karnon grabbed both eir hands with enthusiasm, turning to address the clapping crowd.

Jayk could barely focus on the master’s words over eir pounding heartbeat, full of dizziness and joy. _I did it._

Ey hadn’t even flinched.


	2. Shimar, 1

Shimar lived on an island surrounded by gentle waves, cloudy waters, and shifting sandbars that could destroy even the wariest ships. Though the mainland lay within sight, once the plague came, it may as well have been on another world. Rigorous quarantines and purification rituals meant any trip ashore took a week at best. Life on the island moved to its own slow, ponderous rhythm, the kind beaten out on drums the size of full-grown people with mallets heavier than Shimar. The kind of island where no spellcrafter worth their salt would dare create fishing line without soaking the fibers for a month in seawater gathered at the full moon, or distribute a draft of peaceful sleep that hadn’t been buried for a month in a clay jug painted with the names of all who had used the jug before. The islanders cultivated fish and a small population of island deer, but more importantly, they cultivated patience.

Shimar hated it.

She had traveled the full length of the island in her parents’ sling and arms before she could even walk. By the time she was five, there was nothing new to see. Before she was ten, she’d made a reputation for herself. She’d been born under the stars of the Sower, but many joked that she was a classic mirror sign. In other words, as her pa often said, “You must be a Reaper’s child, because you’re going to be the death of me.”

 

“Child, consider how quickly one should move through the world,” said Grand Elder Arragi one day, after Shimar had been caught attempting to take her teacher’s boat out to sea. “You have the tides, who have their slow, steady course and can never be shaken, rising and falling with a power no human can turn aside. There are the waves, as they roll in from the depths to the shore, who see their goal and plod towards it, running only when they know their goal is in their reach. And then there are the sandpipers, who scurry back and forth after the sea foam, running miles and going nowhere. Tell me, Shimar, which do you think you are right now?”

Shimar knew the answer, and she knew Grand Elder Arragi knew she knew the answer, so she didn’t see much of a point in answering the question. Instead, she said, “The tide doesn’t go anywhere either. It goes back and forth and back and forth and back and forth like the sandpipers, it just takes for _ever_ to do it.”

Grand Elder Arragi told her to go meditate on top of a sand dune, and every time she caused sand to slide, she would have to stay meditating for another thirty minutes.

 

The plague had left the mainland before Shimar’s second birthday, but the quarantines lingered. Some days it seemed like everyone but Shimar could remember the time when the channel between the mainland was filled with boats going back and forth, when the Dragon Roads brought the whole world to the island. Merchants from the rainforest kingdoms bearing polished jewelry and puzzle-boxes of multicolored wood. Bards who spun tales of desert chimeras, singing bears, Those Who Walk Among the Stars, court intrigue from the east coast’s own monarch and from courts across the continent. Astronomers trying to settle their own incomprehensible arguments about the star-paths, comparing the view at sea level to the views in their mountain-peak observatories.

Though the roads had died with so much else in the plague, the goods and stories lingered. Shimar’s own parents—a fisher and a weaver—had a set of porcelain plates painted with burgundy scenes of stone houses, stony rivers, and draping trees Shimar’s parents called “willows.” And the stories ranged from tales of heroic dragon riders to rhapsodies about the best pulled pork Elder Sharam had ever eaten, a day’s journey inland.

 

When Shimar was 11, the Dragon Roads reached her island again, courtesy of a mapmaker flying a glossy black Abayan, a graceful dragon breed twice the size of a horse, known for its power and speed. The dragon rider wore thick undyed wool, wrapped tight around the torso, arms, and legs to cut down drag while flying. Shimar ogled this utterly featureless garment like it was spun gold. She was ready to cling to the Abayan’s leg to get off the island.

She eavesdropped outside the Elder Council. The list of towns that had vanished in the plague staggered Shimar, but the list of towns that were making recoveries was longer. Their coastal kingdom had a new monarch, apparently, but there weren’t enough people to collect ver taxes. The Dragon Roads were opening again, but dangerous; many people had resorted to banditry after the plague destroyed communities, and the road maintainers demanded more money to compensate for the greater risk. Many suspected the maintainers were in cahoots with the bandits and simply turned the money over.

Shimar drank it all in, every detail, trying to commit them to memory even if she didn’t understand all the words or names. The meeting ended, and still she sat by the door, thinking, secure in the knowledge that the elders would spend another 30 minutes chatting before any of them left.

She had forgotten that a dragon rider from the mainland might not be so leisurely. The dragon rider—a neman, by the way the left side of ner head was shaved--nearly stepped on her as ne strode out the door. Ne jumped, and Shimar stifled a yelp with her hand.

“What was that?” Elder Rarrun called from inside. Shimar frantically shook her head at the mapmaker.

“Just a shell underfoot,” the mapmaker responded, grinning. Ne closed the door behind ner. Ner face, several shades paler than Shimar’s deep brown, was covered in sweat. Wool for high-altitude flights didn’t translate well to islands. But ne seemed to be in fine humor.

“Thank you,” Shimar whispered. “Can I come with you?” The mapmaker put a hand over ner mouth. Shimar had a sneaking suspicion ne was laughing at her.

“My dragon only carries one, I’m afraid,” said the mapmaker, smiling. “But you may yet get your own. The dragonways testers will be coming through here, now that you’re plague-free and on the map again.” Shimar gasped.

“When? When?”

“Soon enough,” the mapmaker said. “You’ll just need to be a little patient.”

Ne bowed. Shimar had no idea how to respond to that, so she settled on the salute fishing crews gave to shoreworkers.

Maybe adults just had to tell children to be patient all the time. Maybe it was in the secret adult rules. But not even that could dampen her spirits. She ran back home to keep gulls away from the crops like she was supposed to be doing all along.

 

Shimar wanted without restriction. Sure, she would never get everything she wanted, but the more things you wanted, the more chances you had to be satisfied.

By the time she was 13 and old enough for the dragonways test, she wanted to run away and be a jester, be captured by pirates, stow away on a spice merchant’s caravan, or attend the dragon academy. She wasn’t picky.

The day of her dragonways test was only the third time the masters had visited since the plague. The island didn’t have enough children to merit its own visit, so Shimar and the few other 13-year-olds bundled into a boat for the mainland, accompanied by most of the elders and far too much pomp and circumstance. Families from up and down the coast had assembled by the time Masters Karnon and Elondrim landed.

When Master Karnon began his speech, Shimar quickly figured out that it was the same speech as the past two years. Shimar entertained herself and her nearby peers by murmuring the speech along with him, replacing the word “dragon” with “chicken.”  
Most of her surrounding peers finally lost their struggle against laughter when she reached, “and now, more than ever, the land relies on the strength of chickens.” Master Karnon continued unfazed. The elders shot scandalized glares at the huddled young teens, but that would have done nothing to stop Shimar’s recitation if the dark, snakelike dragon on Master Elondrim’s waist hadn’t slooowly turned its head until its blue eyes looked straight into Shimar’s. She gulped. But any nerves were forgotten when Master Karnon concluded (”…and without further ado, let us see whether any among you have been chosen by the dragons [chickens]”), and Shimar joined the mad scramble to get in line.

When the crystal burst into flames under her hands, she wanted to lift it in the air in celebration. She settled for flinging her hands into the air in joy, whooping and leaping before assuming as close to a polite silence she could manage while vibrating with happiness. I’m going to see the world.


	3. Malsit, 1

Malsit was seven the first time ve almost died.

At seven, like all born under the sign of the healer, Malsit became a page, the first step on ver inevitable life’s journey towards doctorhood. Ve left ver home to travel the world with Doctor Fokatar, a warm, booming veoman with the general air and appearance of a contented seal.

Some doctors, especially in those years when the plague was still so close to everyone’s minds, liked to terrify their pages into obedience with tales of festering coughs, of sickly purple sores, of whole towns gone in the span of weeks. Doctor Fokatar held no truck with that. Instead, ve told ver pages tales of the legendary healers of old. Doctor Roasni, who saved an emprex from poison by whipping up an antidote from only the leftovers in the servants’ kitchen. Doctor Agravin, who climbed over quarantine barricades to treat the town of Brookbend for seven days and seven nights until ve saved the whole town from a pox, but succumbed verself. Doctor Umbeo, who learned to walk the stars and offered the Reaper ver own life in exchange for the life of a regex with a wasting sickness.

Most of the legendary healers died at the end.

Doctor Fokatar and ver pages and apprentices were part of a traveling band of doctors who spent most of their time in towns too small to have a proper doctor of their own. Pages like Malsit would join the doctor in the room with patients, but stay out of the way, watching and learning. Only after years of observation and lessons would they be permitted to ascend to apprentices and help with the healings.

The band spent that winter on a frozen plain, supporting a farming town. The pines from the windbreak around town bowed under the weight of snow, livestock and people alike huddled in the town’s long, multifamily buildings for warmth. A deadly fever burned through the townsfolk. Doctor Fokatar treated everyone ve could, and the band tried to separate the sick from the healthy, but the fever was one that spread by spirits, not touch. The doctors set spirit traps—incense in wooden bowls floating in larger bowls of water—but spirits were crafty, the incense was old, and more fell sick.

Malsit ran simple errands, like plugging holes in the walls with dirt, or packing snow into old wineskins to cool the fever victims. Doctor Fokatar kept up lessons as best ve could, between preparing tonics, praying to the Healer, and tending the sick. A doctor’s knowledge is sacred. It must live beyond one mere mortal life.  
When Malsit turned from page to patient, therefore, ve had seen exactly how ve would die. Ve had memorized the stages from healthy to sick to really sick to dead. The way your body felt sore and your skin felt warm, the way the cold worked its way through even the thickest blankets until your teeth rattled in your head.  
Ve had a lot of time with nothing to do, while ve lay there shivering. Amid all the herb lists and tonic recipes and warning signs ve’d memorized in ver year as a page, ve realized something new and crucial.

Ve didn’t want to die. Ve wanted to go back to the swamps of Terevia where ve was born and eat ver favorite apples fried in dough and covered in sugar. Ve wanted to grow up enough that the squires would teach ver how to play their favorite card game, one with real money that they said wasn’t for little kids. Ve wanted to learn to read the maps of the dragon roads, pick a spot ve’d never been, and go.

Malsit hadn’t feared death before then. Adults always said that if you were good, you’d be rewarded in the next life. Lying sick in a longhouse full of people ve didn’t know, Malsit thought, for the first time, the treacherous thought, _What about_ this _life?_

***

Malsit developed a “stay alive” plan after ve recovered (Ve’d tried to start making a plan during ver fever, but given, well, the fever, ve didn’t make much progress). The plan was simple. One, the best doctors were the least likely to die; therefore, Malsit had to become the best doctor. And two, according to stories, the best doctors usually died when they made some foolhardy sacrifice for the good of other people. Therefore, Malsit would not do something so mind-bogglingly illogical as the heroes of legend. Stay smart. Stay safe.

Fear drove ver to fly up the rankings of the many pages and squires traveling with the doctors. Ve studied with a fervent devotion to the lore of healers. Ver life depended on it, after all. Ve couldn’t understand why the other pages were so slow, why they laughed off mistakes. The other pages wanted to be doctors, an unaccountable phenomenon, yet they were objectively worse at it.

***

The second time Malsit almost died, ve was 10, in a bustling merchant town that had sprung up around a desert oasis on the Dragon Roads. Ve could barely keep down water, precious water in the desert, and food was out of the question. Doctor Fokatar and the other doctors mixed bitter yarba root in with Malsit’s water and placed tubelike bags of cool sand from deep underground on Malsit’s forehead. One of the older squires, Ranna, like an older sibling to Malsit, told ver stories and held ver hand when ve couldn’t sleep and needed a distraction from the nausea.

By chance, one of these days, Ranna told the story of the healer Yesrin, who had unbraided ver healer bun, taken off the long cloak of the doctors, and posed as a warrior. Yesrin lived in a time before the Dragon Roads, when everyone was at war with someone or other, and countries that weren’t at war would pick a neighbor to quarrel with, to keep up appearances. Yesrin followed ver best friend into battle. As mirror-signs, a healer and warrior could pose as each other with minimal effort—mirror-signs kept their hair the same length, held the same standards on tattoos and shaving, that sort of thing. All the healer Yesrin had needed to do was put ver hair into a warrior’s topknot, paint ver face, and change ver clothes.

As usual, the story ended with Yesrin sacrificing verself nobly for ver best friend. But it got Malsit thinking. Ve had never considered simply running away. Yesrin had a foolproof plan, if ve hadn’t been hampered by that inexplicable sense of nobility.

At 10, Malsit was still a child. But at 10, you were expected to specialize. Astronomers could sit in on a birth and draw up a star-chart for the newborn. Shepherds knew more about livestock than Malsit hoped to ever learn. Even wanderers, the laziest-sounding sign, knew how to keep themselves alive in the wilderness for days on end.  
Ve needed a way to pose as another sign, yet never ever be expected to know basic things about that sign’s specialty.

That’s how ve first got interested in the dragon riders.

***

Three years and one more brush with death later, Malsit sat with ver troupe of doctors around an evening riverbank campfire. Frog song filled the air, from trilling cheeps to a booming, intermittent croak. Ranna turned roasting copperfish over the crackling flames, and the smell made Malsit’s mouth water.

The doctors argued over the best route to take to a city rebuilding from an earthquake. Outsiders would have been hard-pressed to tell it was an argument. You had to live with Doctor Fokatar to truly appreciate the menace that could go into the words, “Of course, I’d love to hear your thoughts.” The troupe had two choices: a shorter route that wound through scattered towns like drops on a spiderweb, connected sometimes by nothing more than a goat track, or a longer route on major roads, many of them still maintained.

As was the way of doctors, the debate was mostly a competition between which of the routes was most selfless. To go into back roads, where they would be able to serve those with scant resources? Or to go through the cities and replenish their own supplies so they would be better able to serve the people at the earthquake site? Malsit watched and waited for a lull in the tension when all the doctors were genuinely considering each other’s arguments, not huffily plotting their next line of attack.

“People in the cities need more doctors too,” Malsit said. “We can restock and still heal as we travel. It’s not one or the other.” Ve sat back on ver log and let that fact ripple through the conversation, not wanting to seem overeager. One selfless statement would get them talking. Too many and they’d start suspecting ver of just wanting a soft bed for a few nights.

None of them would have guessed the real reason—the city route took them through the capital of Hanover, country of the dragon academy. In Hanover, the the regex and his army enforced a law that all thirteen-year-olds had to take the dragonways test. All Malsit had to do was slip away, swap clothes, and find some helpful official to point ver to test. Warrior Malsit would enter the dragon academy with none the wiser. Simple, yet brilliant, if Malsit did say so verself, which ve often did in the privacy of ver own head.

***

Malsit had not counted on precisely how keen the regex’s military would be.

Outside the oak gates and granite walls of the capital city, under drizzly skies, the guards on duty asked, “Are any of your party of age for the dragonways test?”

“Oh yes, Malsit’s thirteen,” said Doctor Fokatar, beaming. Ve waved Malsit forward. “How fun, I’d almost forgotten. When and where should we present ver?” And Malsit listened in despair as ver plan of years collapsed, foiled by earnest adults doing their civic duty. Ve hated civic duty.

Malsit wanted to live. None of the adults in ver life seemed to care about that.

Years of training on bedside manner had honed Malsit’s acting ability, but still, Doctor Fokatar picked up on ver low mood that evening. The dragonways test would be held in two days.

“Chin up, Malsit,” said the doctor. “It’s a lengthy formality, yes, but you’ll get to see some dragons up close! And it’s always heartwarming to see someone chosen.” Doctor Fokatar didn’t seem to consider the possibility that Malsit would be chosen. With the test now an imminent plan and not an idle fancy, Malsit was starting to see how ludicrous the whole plan had been to begin with. Why would the test choose ver anyway?

So it was a surprise to everyone, two days later, when Malsit placed ver hands on the crystal ball and saw flames spring into being. Ve wanted to scream. Years of hoping, and here ve was, leaving the healer troupe and still as trapped as ever.

_I’m not dead yet_ , ve thought, and with that thought, ve could paste on a smile as Master Karnon held ver hand aloft and declared ver the latest member of the dragon academy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay on this one! I was going to have a nice, happy world with no gender discrimination whatsoever, and then I got angry at the real world. 
> 
> I'm counting these three chapters as Prologue, and then I'm going to try and knock out a bunch of this story for NaNoWriMo. Ideally, come December, I'll start posting updates again.


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